


from this day forward

by lyricalprose (fairylights)



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics), Nightwing (Comics)
Genre: Bat Family, Batfamily Feels, Batman #24, F/M, Family Drama, Gen, bruce and selina get engaged, nobody knows how to process this, this is as much about Bruce And His Kids as it is about bruce and selina tbh, this was supposed to be crack and fluff but it really got away from me, wayne family gatherings are very high-drama
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-06
Updated: 2017-09-02
Packaged: 2018-11-12 17:10:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11166342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fairylights/pseuds/lyricalprose
Summary: Selina saysyes.The rest of the family promptly flips.





	1. part i - dick

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by Batman #24, obviously. 
> 
> I am not up to date on all of the Bat-books, so I am 1000 percent certain that this contradicts some canon somewhere, but I do not care. Strict adherence to Rebirth canon is really Not The Point here, though obviously it's where the bare continuity bones are coming from (thus, no Tim. Yet. Sorry, Tim).
> 
> Oodles and oodles of thanks to [helplesslynerdy](http://archiveofourown.org/users/helplesslynerdy/pseuds/helplesslynerdy) for reading this over and convincing me I wasn't crazy.

It is very,  _very_  early Friday morning, and Dick is tired, and he would like nothing more in the world than to take off his uniform, crawl into bed, and sleep for around fourteen hours.

Instead, he is sitting in his dark bedroom, mask off but Nightwing suit still on, staring down at the screen of his phone. The harsh light is the only thing cutting through the dark of his room, and squinting at it is hurting his eyes a little.

What's on the screen, though, is giving his brain a lot more trouble than his eyes.

The text, now a few hours old, is innocent enough. 

> **Can you make it back to the manor tomorrow? By dinner?**

Well, it  _ought_  to be innocent. If it was coming from anyone but Bruce, it would be. But Bruce, despite being an enthusiastic early adopter of texting – it's efficient, and Bruce  _loves_  efficient – does not usually send messages with so many words. This one even sounds vaguely  _polite,_  and contains one whole full sentence, even if it is interrogatory. Dick can count on one hand the number of times he's gotten a text from Bruce containing any message much more expressive than, say,  _Cave 0200_. 

If Bruce has something of any substance to say, he either does it in a phone call or in person.

But what's even stranger than the message itself is the fact that it's a  _group_  text, sent to both Dick and a phone number he wouldn't recognize if it weren't for the fact that Jason had called him from it yesterday. It's the latest in a series of burner phones that Jason (in what Dick thinks is a strikingly Bruce-like variety of paranoia) has been using lately.

His phone chirps with another message, this one from the number he recognizes as Jason's - sent only to him, and not to Bruce.

> **wtf? something going on that I should know about?**
> 
> **since when do we do family dinner?**

Dick rubs at his eyes – and  _ouch_ , there's going to be a bruise by the right one tomorrow – and texts Jason back.

> **search me, I have no idea what's going on**
> 
> **you going?**

It's a while before he gets a response, in which time he strips off the rest of his uniform, texts Bruce an affirmative, and wriggles under the rumpled sheets on his bed, where he spends a full three minutes debating with himself about whether or not he ought to get up and try and brush the taste of harbor water out of his mouth before going to sleep. He's just about decided on  _yes_  when his phone chirps again.

> **fuck me, I guess so**

Dick tries to throw his phone onto his nightstand, misses, groans, buries his face in his pillow, and promptly falls asleep with the faint taste of the Blüdhaven harbor – fish and tin and sour salt – still lingering in his mouth.

-

Fourteen hours is, of course, a pipe dream; Dick can't remember the last time he slept that long without drugs or magic involved. Six hours is sort of his upper limit, a habit born from necessity.

His apartment's empty right now, and his cupboards are bare. Dick closes his eyes, standing in front of his open refrigerator – which currently contains a gallon of milk, two cartons of leftover Chinese food, and one single, solitary egg – and thinks fondly of Alfred's muffins, of black coffee in a mug that's actually clean, of the little chip in the marble kitchen countertops that he'd accidentally put there when he was fourteen.

Gotham's not that far of a drive.

Instead of showing up at the manor for dinner, Dick arrives somewhere in the neighborhood of nine-thirty in the morning. He leaves his bike parked on the front driveway and meanders around the back of the manor, towards the door in the gardens that opens into the kitchen, and is just about to let himself in when the door pops open all on its own.

Dick's expecting Alfred, this early and at the kitchen door, but instead it's Damian – Damian, who he's pretty sure is supposed to be in San Francisco this week, not standing in the kitchen at the manor, wearing plaid-checked pajama pants and a ratty old Gotham Knights hoodie that looks like it's actually getting too small for him.

"I heard you coming up the drive," Damian says, in lieu of an actual greeting. "Thank God you're here. There's an interloper in our midst."

"Good morning to you too, D," he replies, with as much obnoxious good cheer as he possibly can. "Didn't know you were back from San Francisco yet." Damian just scowls and lets go of the kitchen door; Dick only just catches it before it slams shut in his face.

He half-expects to see Jason just inside, given Damian's chosen pejorative. He does  _not_  expect who is  _actually_  sitting there.

Selina Kyle is  _lounging_  – there's no other word for the way she sits – on one of the counter stools at the kitchen island. In her usual way, she somehow manages to look like she's just stepped off the cover of Vogue, even in plain black leggings and...what looks  _suspiciously_  like one of Bruce's old work-out sweatshirts. Because Bruce is built like a brick shithouse, the shirt is so big on Selina it's practically a dress.

"Um," he stutters, momentarily tongue-tied. Damian, who has retreated to the other side of the kitchen, glares at him as though the lapse is a deep personal betrayal.

"Dick," Selina says, languidly drawing out the single syllable of his name into two. "It's been a while, hasn't it?"

"Er – yeah," he fumbles out, before recovering enough to say "Hi, Selina."

Damian, leaning up against the counter and eating a blueberry muffin with a lot more intensity than is strictly necessary, continues to glare. Selina, for her part, just takes a sip of the cup of coffee she's holding and smirks. 

"Is, uh – is Bruce around?"

Selina is just opening her mouth to give an answer that Dick isn't actually sure he wants to hear when Alfred – God bless him – suddenly materializes in the doorway and replies, "He is still asleep, Master Dick." 

"Really?" Bruce generally functions on only a few hours of sleep a night, and he's almost always up by nine. "Rough night, huh?"

"Something like that." It's Selina, not Alfred, who answers, and Dick just...does  _not_  want to know.

(Well, he sort of wants to know, if only so he can gossip about it with Babs later, but he also doesn't want to know.)

"Good morning, Miss Kyle. I trust the coffee is to your liking?" Alfred makes his way through the kitchen and over to the stove, giving Damian – and the pile of crumbs that he's making on the kitchen floor – an aggreived look as he does so. 

"Divine, thank you." Selina gets up, then, and glides back off into the hallway with her  _divine_  cup of coffee. Damian stares daggers at Selina's retreating back at she leaves the kitchen, still angrily chewing his blueberry muffin.

"She, uh...been here long, Alfie?" It certainly looks as though she and Bruce are... _on_  again. Selina has drifted in and out of Bruce's life – well, _lives –_  for as long as Dick has known him, and probably longer than that. Her appearances in that life, however, are usually restricted to moonlit rooftops. Dick is pretty sure he’s _never_ seen her at the manor during daylight hours – just at night, usually as a guest at some party Bruce had hosted.  

That happened more often, when he was a kid.

Alfred, puttering around at the kitchen counter, turns around and gives Dick a sharp look. "I have neither intelligence nor comment on the matter of Miss Kyle's presence. If you insist on nosing, you may take it up with Master Bruce."

Damian, talking through a mouthful of muffin, asks, "Why are you here, Grayson?"

"Bruce asked me to come by today. Jason too, actually, though I doubt we'll see him till later."

Damian narrows his eyes to suspicious little slits. "Father summoned me back here today as well. I planned to refuse, actually, but he insisted it was important, though he declined to provide any explanation as to _why_."

Dick raises an eyebrow, questioning, and looks at Alfred. "You have any idea what's going on?"

"I only knew to expect the three of you today," Alfred says. "Nothing more. Once again, you'll have to take it up with Master Bruce."

Damian  _tsks_  in that particular way of his, then flips the hood of his jacket over his head, glaring out from beneath it in a way that puts Dick in mind of an angry field mouse, peeking out of a burrow. "We'll have it out of him eventually. If you're going to be here, Grayson, you may as well make yourself useful. Come spar with me."

"Dami, I just drove all the way here from Blüdhaven. I kinda want to sit for a minute and-"

He's cut off by Damian throwing a water bottle at his head. It's only because of his well-honed reflexes that he catches it before it whacks him in the nose.

Damian grins, savage, and takes off running down the hallway.

"You've been missed, Master Dick," Alfred says, with false solemnity. "Welcome home."

-

"Hey. You alive?"

Dick cracks an eye – the one not currently covered by a bag of frozen peas – open. Squinting past the little bit of dim sunlight filtering through the clouds, he can immediately make out a familiar scowl. "Technically. Are you?" 

"Technically." Jason's face is covered in scratches, and there's a butterfly bandage over a cut on his right cheek. "Tired as fuck, though. There's an Amazon passed out in my bed right now, sleeping off a curse or some shit, and the floor is  _not_  comfortable." 

Dick raises an eyebrow, but before he can say anything Jason cuts him off. "Don't. If you even obliquely _imply_ , I swear to god she'll hear it, _somehow_ , and fly halfway across the city to beat your ass into the ground."

Dick has not actually had the pleasure of meeting Jason's new Amazon friend, but if she's even a tiny bit like Donna or Diana, he absolutely believes it. Instead, he readjusts the bag of peas over his slowly swelling eye. "I don't think my ass would like that very much."

Jason snorts and flops down next to him in the grass. Dick is laying on the back lawn of the estate, under a tree, trying to convince himself to enjoy the quiet.

It's not really working. He and _quiet_  have never gotten along particularly well. It's one of those things that's _supposed_  to be good for you – like quinoa, or granola bars, or keeping your feet on the ground – that he just doesn't really _get_.

Give him Pop-Tarts and somersaults over peace and quiet, any day.

"So, any idea why we've been summoned to the royal presence today?"

Dick shrugs as best as he can while still laying on the ground. "Still no clue. Haven't even seen Bruce since I got here, and Damian and I've been in the Cave all morning." He sits up a little, resting on his elbows and taking the frozen peas off his eye. "Did see Selina doing the walk of shame in the kitchen this morning, though." He frowns. "Having the breakfast of shame? Drinking the coffee of shame? Something like that. There wasn't actually a lot of walking involved. No shame, either."  

Jason makes a face. "Eugh. Things I don't want to know anything about, that's at the top of the list." He squints at Dick's pea-covered eye. "Why do you have peas on your face?"

"Damian. And Tiger Shark. Not in that order."

"Hn." Jason's acknowledgement is equal parts sympathy and amusement. "I am like, 90 percent certain that's the _exact_ same bag of peas Alfred used to give me whenever I got shiners as a kid."

"I think he's just been re-freezing it over and over for like, decades. The best-by date on the bag is 1998."

There is a little bit of silence, after that – comfortable, almost, in a way Dick is still not used to with Jason. It's _nice,_ but it's also still pretty new, and it feels a little bit like holding a bubble on your finger – like if you move your hand wrong, or shift into a breeze, or cough, it'll pop.

“Bruce is being weird, right?”

“Bruce is being weird,” Dick agrees. “But he’s always weird.”

Jason settles a little further into the grass and drapes an arm across his eyes. “You people are all _exhausting._ ”

There’s no _pop._ Not yet.

-

Eventually, Alfred has everyone assembled in the dining room, seated or standing around the one little bit of the ridiculously long formal dining table that anyone ever actually uses.

They all sit or stand slightly apart from each other, as if the uncertainty of the situation has somehow physically separated them. Jason, awkwardly sprawled in a high-backed mahogany chair, looks like he would rather be virtually anywhere else in the world. Damian is sitting opposite him, slouching theatrically in his chair and absently running his bare feet over the back of the enormous lump of Great Dane that is Titus, sleeping under the table. Dick, for his part, is sitting on the tabletop, swinging his dangling legs a bit and trying, for the hundredth time today, to puzzle out what Bruce wants to talk to them about.

He's not having much luck. Everything about this is... _weird_. Since the only people here, other than himself, are Damian and Jason, it's probably something Bat-adjacent, at the very least – but obviously no one is in uniform, and they're not in the Cave, which means it's not something particularly pressing. Duke isn't present – he's out with friends, according to Alfred – which means Bruce either has looped him in separately or has some reason for not wanting him involved. 

He has a feeling, from the inscrutable looks on Damian and Jason's faces, that they are running the same calculations he is and having no more luck.

(There's a sudden, sharp pang of  _missing_  as he wishes, pointlessly, for Tim – Tim, who probably would have already figured out what was going on, and who would've shared with the class).

Then Bruce comes into the room, followed by Alfred and…Selina.

Dick hadn't realized that she was still here.

Bruce stands at the head of the table while Selina, like Dick, perches on top of it.

"Thank you all for coming here today," Bruce says, in the stiff, overly formal tone he uses when he's uncomfortable – the same voice he'd used when he sat Dick down for The Talk in middle school. "There are three points of order I want to address here."

"You're not  _dying_  or something, are you?" Jason interrupts, and Dick can tell that he is only mostly joking – there is a tiny bit of real concern there, buried under sarcasm.

"I am _not_ dying," Bruce responds, firmly, before pressing straight on with, "Point number one: I have asked Selina to marry me. She has agreed."

The chorus of astonishment following this announcement is so sudden and loud that Titus, who is usually unbothered by any noise up to and including Clark breaking the sound barrier as he flies out of the Cave, feels compelled to join in with a bark so low and booming that Dick can feel it vibrating in his chest. 

Bruce tries, unsuccessfully, to bring order to the room, but his efforts are too divided to do much. Damian is shouting – Dick can't make out what, exactly, but it’s definitely rude. Jason is trying to ask a question – less rude, but still some variation of _“what the hell?",_ peppered with a few extra expletives.

Alfred has suddenly sunk down into a chair, one hand over his mouth. Dick's only contribution to the commotion has been an aborted  _"What?",_ quickly buried in the others' much louder shouts.

The noise only quiets down when Alfred comes to himself, puts his fingers to his lips and  _whistles,_ high and long and loud enough for everyone to stop what they're doing and turn to look at him.

Titus barks again, just once, as if agreeing with Alfred's sentiment.

"You're shitting me," Jason says, into the sudden silence.

"Point number two–" Bruce attempts to go on, as if Jason hasn't spoken at all – as if none of them have spoken at all – but Damian cuts him off.

"Aren't you a convicted felon?" Damian snarls acidly, in Selina's general direction. "Father, I'd rather not have a convicted felon for a stepmother."

"Kid, you remember who your  _mom_ is, right?" Jason asks, incredulous. Damian turns his black scowl in Jason's direction instead.

Selina, for her part, just smiles beatifically at Damian. "Convicted for crimes I didn't commit, dear. I didn't actually  _kill_  anyone." 

Damian begins to mutter something about that hardly being the only crime she's ever been accused of, but Jason immediately starts talking over him. "You know you can do better than him, right?" he asks Selina. "Like – way,  _way_  better."

"Oh, I know, honey," Selina purrs. Bruce, implacable as ever, doesn't look the least bit insulted.

Damian leaps up from his chair, and Titus starts barking again. "I'm _leaving_ ," the boy hisses, and then stalks dramatically from the room, dog at his heels.

"Damian–" Bruce starts to say, but Alfred stops him with a raised hand. "If I may, Master Bruce – please, allow me. And may I say, sir–" Here he peers around Bruce, to look right at Selina with a very gentle smile, "–and to you, Miss Kyle – congratulations."

Selina smiles back at him, though it's a bit weak. "Thanks, Alfred."

A nod, and something else –something unspoken – passes between Alfred and Bruce, and then he's gone, out the door after Damian.

Jason's chair screeches against the floor as he pushes it backwards and drawls, "Well, I’m really not sure why I'm _here,_ so I'm gonna go outside for a smoke, and then I'm gonna–" He makes a vague gesture in the direction of the front of the house that's clearly meant to say _go as far away from here as possible_ , and then promptly bolts from the room.

This leaves Dick, Bruce, and Selina standing around the dining table, staring everywhere but at each other until the silence, thick and oppressive, simply _has_ to be cut with something. 

"Well, _that_  happened," Dick chirps. "Congratulations!"

-

Selina excuses herself by claiming she needs a drink. She vanishes into the corridor like a shadow, curling around the corner and into the dark, echoing hallway, where her feet don't even make a sound on the floor. 

Bruce, on the other hand, slips out onto the balcony.

The dining room has a set of tall, glass-paneled doors which open onto a veranda, where you can look out over the back of the estate. Dick used to do homework out here, sometimes, when he was a kid. Here, he could take breaks and do walkovers on the railing when the reading was just too dreary, or when the writing was making his fingers itch for something other than a pencil. It was less convenient than the Cave, where Bruce keeps all the really good gymnastics equipment, but considerably less depressing. 

Now he's probably a bit too tall for that, and the railing is too slick besides. It's been raining off and on for the last few hours, because this is Gotham, and the pockmarked old balcony has collected rainwater in every little nook and cranny. 

"I distinctly remember you once telling me," he says, as he follows Bruce outside, "that yours and Selina's relationship was none of my business."

Bruce, hunched over the balcony with his elbows on the railing, doesn't respond.

"Now it's  _family_  business?"

"Yes," Bruce answers firmly, this time.

"You really do _love_  her, don't you?" He laughs. "I mean, I guess obviously, if you asked her to marry you, but um – wow."

Bruce glares at him, but Dick can tell his heart's not in it. "Is it really so _shocking_ to everyone, the idea that I might _love_ someone?"

Dick considers not dignifying that with an answer, but thinks better of it. "Bruce, twenty minutes ago I couldn't have said if the two of you have ever actually been _together_  at all."

To his credit, Bruce does look ever so slightly chastened, and there are a few beats before he speaks again. "I am," he says, then pauses, as if searching for the right words, "not good at this."

"At what?"

Bruce makes a noise caught somewhere between a sigh and a laugh. "Life, I think."

Dick can't help but laugh a little, too. "You really did ask her, huh?"

"Yes." He looks at Dick, then, suddenly serious. "Is that going to be a problem?"

"For me? No, God no." Dick glances back towards the house. "For Damian, maybe."

Another sigh, this one without any laughter in it. "Damian will be fine."

"Damian," Dick says, gently, "is barely thirteen, and has always held on to a teeny, tiny bit of hope that someday, Talia will see the light and his parents will get back together."

Bruce's face hardens, jaw tight and eyes dark. "That is  _not_  going to happen. Damian knows that."

"Sure, but there's a big difference between abstractly knowing that and suddenly having a new stepmom." Dick still can't quite keep a laugh out of his voice, even though Bruce's face is the furthest thing from amused.

 _Oh, god._ Abruptly, he realizes that, at least legally, Selina would sort of be his stepmother, too. That's just – that's just too _weird_ to even contemplate right now.

"Why now?" Why _ever_ , he wonders too, but doesn't share that. "You've been off and on again for what – a decade? At least? What changed?"

He does not, in fact,  _know_  if they have ever been off and on again for ten  _minutes_ , let alone ten years, but he's always wondered. Bruce plays pretty much all of his cards very close to the chest, but–

It was different, when he was a kid. When he was Robin. He can remember Selina and Bruce back in those days – younger, then, and without as much baggage. Before Bruce had any gray in his hair. Selina had been on the wrong side of the law more often then, but – she used to make Bruce _smile_.

Bruce would send him away, most of the time, whenever Selina showed up, but sometimes he’d hang back and watch them anyways. Selina would flirt and Bruce would growl and she'd laugh, completely unintimidated, and then she'd slink away and Bruce would watch her go and he’d – _smile_.

He hopes she still makes him smile. Bruce has never smiled enough.

Bruce is quiet for a few moments, long enough that Dick is pretty sure he's not going to answer, before he says, softly, "I‘d known her for several years, already, when you came to live here." He chuckles, and it's a hoarse, tired sort of sound. "God, I'm old, aren't I?" 

"Decrepit, absolutely." 

Bruce has, of course, not actually answered the question he asked. Dick gives it a minute – just lets the loose thread dangle there to see if Bruce will go back to pick it up.

"I am tired," Bruce finally says, in a voice that's much quieter than usual, "of not being happy."

It is quite possibly the last thing that Dick _ever_ expected to hear him say.

Bruce is drawing circles in the rainwater that has pooled in an uneven spot on the balcony ledge – a distracted motion, so unlike him that Dick is a little unsettled by it. "It's not – it's not that I've _never_  been happy. You–" He stops, for a minute, and switches the direction of his fingers in the water, clockwise to counter-clockwise. "–you boys, all of you, have been – I am  _so_  proud of you all."

It is not  _I love you,_  but from Bruce it might as well be. Dick settles in next to him on the balcony, elbows resting on the ledge as he leans over it and stretches, rocking on the balls of his feet.

"I do not often  _choose_  things that make me happy." 

This is not quite true. Fast cars, the Clash, black-and-white movies. Reading obscure Eastern European novels in their original languages. Chinese food and saag paneer and Dick's bad jokes. Old episodes of  _The Gray Ghost._  Alfred's lemon scones. Dick has known Bruce for a long time. 

But those are little things, and not quite choices.

"So you're just making a _choice,_ huh? Hell of a dramatic choice."

Bruce looks like he's about to protest, but Dick laughs and cuts him off before he can try. "It's not a criticism. You don't know any other way to do things, Bruce. You're sort of a go big or go home kind of guy."

It's true – Dick doesn't know if it's the money, the Batman, or Bruce's inherent flair for the dramatic that’s behind it, but the man does not know how to do anything in a _small_  way. He is simultaneously the least and most demonstrative person that Dick has ever met.

"I'm really happy for you, you know."

"Thanks."

"Are  _you_  happy for you?"

Bruce pauses, for a minute, before saying, "Yes."

"You should probably talk to Damian."

"I know."

"He's probably gonna be shitty about it."

Bruce sighs, with feeling. "I know."

Dick hesitates, a moment, before asking, "Do you want me to talk to him first?"

For a minute, he thinks Bruce might say yes – but then he shakes his head, grim, and pushes back off the balcony. "No. I should do it."

"I'm going to go find Jason, then." Dick pushes off the balcony as well, and feels a few drops of water hit his face as he does. It's started to rain again, just a little. 

Bruce makes a harrumphing sort of sound that Dick only knows how to interpret because of his many years of experience speaking Bruce Wayne. "Yeah, I think he's a little miffed with you too."

-

He actually finds Jason and Selina together – sitting on the step outside the back kitchen door, huddled under the awning and sharing a cigarette.

"Thought you were trying to quit," Dick says to Jason, who just shrugs.

"She's a bad influence on me," Jason mumbles around the cigarette. "All her fault."

"I am not here to be anyone's  _good influence,_ " Selina bites out acidly, snatching the cigarette back from Jason and taking a long drag. "That is  _not_  what this is about."

"What  _is_  it about, then?" Jason asks, sounding genuinely, uncharacteristically curious. "I mean, it's not like I'm not used to crazy shit, but you could knock me over with a feather right now, that's how fuckin' wild this is."

Selina grits her teeth, then blows smoke up into the glow of the porch light. It's an old bulb in an antique fixture, casting slightly orange-tinted light. Dick can see dust motes floating there, for a moment, before the smoke sweeps through and scatters them. "This is _not_  a conversation I am going to have with you.  _Either_  of you," she snaps at Dick, pointing one elegantly manicured fingernail in his direction. "I do  _not_  have to justify myself here. Bruce asked, and I answered. We are both consenting adults. That ought to be the end of it."

"Now you just sound like Bruce," Jason says, crossing his legs at the ankle and leaning back against the kitchen door, arms folded behind his head. "Was that how he pitched the little family announcement to you, before you told us?"

Selina drops her forehead into one hand, massaging it, as if to rub away stress. Jason snatches the cigarette back from her other hand, takes a drag and then grinds it out on the damp ground, underneath his boot.

"This is a bad idea," she finally mumbles, nearly inaudible. "A really, _really_ bad idea."

"Probably," Dick agrees, cheerfully. "But so is dressing up as a bat to fight crime."

Selina's shoulders start to shake, a little muffled chuckle escaping from her mouth – and then the back door opens, making Jason fall backwards onto the tile floor of the kitchen with a muffled ' _fuck.'_  Alfred, who's the one holding the door, nimbly side-steps him and stares down, unimpressed, at the bedraggled tableau huddled on the back step. 

Selina throws her head back and laughs properly, then, and the sound is high and clear like a bell.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> guys, this was supposed to be 1000 words, max, of crack and fluff. Now it's going to be, like...novella-length, with lots of drama. I have zero self-control. This is also definitely going to pick up more tags as we move along.
> 
> next up is part ii: bruce.


	2. part ii - bruce

Damian is not in his room.

Titus is, though, and the dog is giving Bruce a baleful look from his customary spot at the foot of Damian's bed, as if reproaching him for disrupting his nap.

He'd only half-expected Damian to actually  _be_  in his room. The Cave is the next most likely spot – there are plenty of nooks and crannies there small enough for a sulky teenager to hide in.

Bruce has only just started to turn on his heel and leave for the Cave when his phone begins to ring. Titus flicks his ears and snuffles at the noise before resting his head on his paws and staring, mournfully, at the spot in the bed where Damian usually sleeps.

Bruce feels judged, somehow.

The screen of his phone displays a Metropolis area code and a familiar number.

On this civilian phone, none of Bruce's contacts are labeled by name. It's an unnecessary security risk – in the (admittedly unlikely) event that it's compromised, there are still too many connections that could be made too easily with even a short glance at his contact list. Instead, Bruce just memorizes numbers and regularly purges his call history.

He answers quickly, before the phone can even finish ringing once. "Clark?"

The voice on the other end of the phone is low, lower than Clark's normal speaking voice, made artificially dramatic. "It's 10 P.M. Do you know where your children are?"

Bruce can feel a headache starting, even as some of the tension he hadn't realized he was carrying seeps out of his body. "Presumably, you're calling to tell me that one of them has just crawled through your son's bedroom window."

Clark's voice sobers, and Bruce can hear running water in the background on his end of the line. Kitchen sink? Bathroom faucet? Impossible to tell, given the relatively poor call quality. On a League communicator he'd be able to place it. "Yeah, I figured I ought to make sure you knew where he was."

Bruce pinches the bridge of his nose, willing the rising throb behind his eyes to recede.

The voice on the other end of the call lightens, back to Clark's normal, neutrally pleasant tone. "I can  _see_  you pinching your nose from here."

"Even you can't see that far. Curvature of the Earth prevents it."

Clark laughs, and Bruce can hear the water shut off in the background. Dishes clattering. A murmuring female voice, saying something he can't quite make out. Lois, almost certainly. "He's been here about ten minutes. I think he parked one of those – what are they, technically? Gliders? Miniature planes? – that you have on the roof of the building."

"Are they planning on going out and doing something-"

"Stupid?"

Bruce was going to say  _rash_ , but  _stupid_  works, too.

"Nah, I don't think so. I haven't been listening very hard, but I think they're mostly arguing." Clark pauses for a moment, and Bruce can practically see the slightly out-of-focus look on his face that appears whenever he's using his super-hearing to intentionally focus on something happening somewhere else. "About…video games, I think? Is there really a video game called Cheese Viking?"

Bruce doesn't respond. Titus whines – much more pathetically than ought to be possible, for an animal of his size.

"Lois was going to go tell them the jig is up. Do you want me to send him home?" Clark asks. "Or  _bring_  him home?"

Bruce sits down on Damian's bed, next to Titus, and the dog rests its head on Bruce's knee.

He has hardly even  _seen_  Damian lately. He's in San Francisco with the Titans half of the time, which is...fine. He's growing up. He needs space. All of the boys, at or around this age, started wanting  _space_  of one kind or another. But–

He patrols without Robin a lot of the time, now. Sometimes he goes out with Duke, though the boy's still easing into his new night job. Sometimes with Kate, or with Cassandra. The manor itself is often  _quiet_ , now, in a way it has not been in years. Duke is a permanent fixture, now, but he has his own friends, his own life – and outside of the Cave he still seems to be walking around on eggshells, trying to figure out where he fits into a world without his parents.

Bruce missed Damian's thirteenth birthday. He wasn't even in the country at the time. And when Damian arrived at the manor yesterday, home from San Francisco for the first time in three days, seeing him practically knocked the breath out of Bruce's chest.

He'd looked  _different_. Older, surely at least half an inch taller, and uncomfortably like Talia in ways that Bruce is not sure how to process. And he'd… _missed_  it, somehow.

"I don't think he wants to talk to me right now," Bruce finally says. 

Clark makes a  _hmming_  noise of acknowledgment, as if to say  _kids, huh?_  "Do you want me to see if he wants to stay the night with us?"

Bruce  _wants_  to jump off a fifty-story building and forget about everything except making sure he's got a line ready for the building after that, and after that, and after that. He wants to go back to bed with Selina and stay there for hours. He wants to punch someone who deserves it in the face. "That might be good."

There's a slight distortion on the other end of the line, and the background noise shifts to more familiar sounds – city noises, sirens and car horns and faint strangers' shouts. Bruce hasn't been to the Kents' new apartment in Metropolis yet, but it must have a balcony. Clark has definitely moved outside. "Is everything okay?" 

Yes. No. Sort of. Never. Bruce is not sure which one is accurate. 

"I asked Selina to marry me."

It is not what he meant to say, but it comes out anyways. 

There are a few beats before Clark says, "You  _what?_ " 

"I asked Selina to marry me," Bruce repeats, and starts to scratch behind Titus' ears. 

"And?" Clark sounds faintly astonished. "What did she say?"

 _Nothing, at first_. "Yes." 

"Wow. I mean, congratulations." Something  _slams_ , loud enough for him to hear it, in the background on Clark's end of the phone. Sounds a bit like a dumpster on ground level. "Kid's not taking it well, then?" 

"You could say that."

"Well, it'll be good for him to stay here tonight and cool off, then. It's not a school night. You can come get him in the morning." 

A few moments of silence pass before Clark says, "Bruce?"

Bruce  _hmms_  an acknowledgment as he scratches at a spot on Titus' ear that the dog seems to like.

"Congratulations. Really. I can't say I've ever  _understood_  you two, but I'm really – I'm really happy for you." 

It is, almost word for word, exactly what Dick said to him earlier, though Dick had mostly implied the  _I don't understand you two._ It also sounds just as unsettlingly genuine.

Not sure what else to say, Bruce just mumbles, "Thanks."

The line disconnects, silently, as Clark hangs up. Bruce has stopped scratching at Titus' ear, and the spoiled lump whines in protest.

Bruce does not know what to do with all of these people  _congratulating_  him. 

-

He leaves Titus on Damian's bed and gets up, meaning to go – somewhere. Do  _something_. Go down to the Cave, maybe. It's getting late. He should probably go out. Should probably stay in. Should go check on the progress of the chemical analyses he set to run yesterday. Should probably go find out where Selina slunk off to, after the scene in the dining room. Should probably check in at the Belfry. Should probably try and talk to Jason before he bolts, though he has no idea what to say.

Bruce's feet take him in the direction of the Cave practically of their own volition. He only stops before actually going down because someone else has, apparently, beaten him there.

"Ah, Master Bruce." The grandfather clock is sliding back into place behind Alfred, softly clicking closed just as Bruce stops in the doorway of the study. "If my cursory inspection of the Cave is not mistaken, I regret to inform you that young Master Damian appears to have–" He clears his throat. " _–flown the coop_ , as it were."

"He's in Metropolis."

Alfred, true to form, does not look the least bit surprised. "Ah. With young Master Kent, I presume?"

Bruce nods. "Clark just called. Apparently he just climbed through Jon's bedroom window."

"Ah." A bit of tension bleeds out of Alfred's stance – imperceptible, probably, to anyone who does not know him very well. "Well, we'd need not worry about him while he's there."

Bruce sinks down into one of the armchairs. The headache, now focused into a dull throb somewhere behind his left eye, is a persistent annoyance. "I wish he hadn't run off." 

Alfred refrains from commenting on Damian. Instead he just  _stares,_ in that way of his that makes Bruce feel all of ten years old again. 

"I was quite sure," Alfred eventually says, crisp and to the point, "that that ring was just going to collect dust for the rest of your life."

Bruce should be surprised that Alfred knew he had it, but he's not. 

He'd bought the diamond on impulse. He had told himself, at the time, that it was no different than the other odds and ends he'd begun to collect in the Cave – though it came before the penny, or the dinosaur, or the playing card.

He'd never displayed it, though. He'd put it away, not in the Cave but in the old jewelry safe, where some of his mother's old things are still stored.

Later, he'd had it set, and then he'd put it away again. Better hidden, that time – or so Bruce had thought.

He'd no longer been able to convince himself that it was anything like the other trophies.

Alfred gives him a deeply, intentionally patronizing look. "Master Bruce," he says, seriously, "I'd thought you would've all realized, by now, that there is very little you can hide from me."

"I hide plenty."

"I just let you all  _think_  you can hide things from me," Alfred retorts, primly. "It's good for morale."

Bruce closes his eyes and rubs at his head, again, where the ache is continuing to bother him. A few moments of silence pass before he hears Alfred clear his throat. A glance up, through his fingers, reveals a glass of water and a pill being extended to him, apparently produced out of thin air.

He takes the water and swallows the pill without comment, and Alfred sits down in the chair next to him – a poufy, overstuffed red thing that's identical to the one Bruce is sitting in. It's vaguely unsettling. Alfred always stands, when speaking, usually somewhere behind him. The familiar sound of Alfred's dry voice, coming from somewhere in the air above and behind Bruce's shoulders, is one of life's very few constants.

"I had hopes for you, you know," Alfred says, quietly. "When you were a young man. I cannot count the number of times I said to myself, 'eventually, he will tire of this. It will not last.' Someday, he will–"

"Meet a nice young lady and settle down?"

Alfred nods. "Quite so."

"Did you really believe that?"

"No." Alfred drums his fingers on the arm of the chair. "Not if I had really allowed myself to consider it." _Tap, tap, tap, tap_ , index, middle, ring, pinky. "But at the time, I quite needed to hope."

Bruce looks down into the half-empty glass of water and recalls himself, a young man. Just before and just after putting on the cowl for the first time. Determined. Angry. Way too sure of himself, in hindsight. "I was a  _mess_  then, Alfred."

"Oh? Has that changed?"

Bruce looks up from the water and narrows his eyes in Alfred's general direction. Alfred, for his part, remains unmoved, his only concession a slightly raised eyebrow – a challenge.

He can't argue, so he doesn't try.

"I am, you know," Bruce finally says.

"A mess? Oh, I have no illusions about that, Master Bruce."

Bruce shakes his head. "No. Tired."

Alfred looks at him, and his eyes are –  _soft_. It's the way he looks at the boys, sometimes, when they don't realize he's looking. Bruce has to shift in his chair and look away. "I know, sir."

"It is a good thing," Alfred says then, pointedly, "to have someone to _share_ such things with."

"I'm not very good at sharing."

"I am well aware." Alfred's voice is drier than a desert. "In this instance I hope you will forgive me if I implore you to  _try_."

"That's the plan."

"It has always been my fondest wish," Alfred says, after a few long moments, "for you to be happy."

Bruce knows. Alfred has never made it a secret. He and Alfred just have different definitions of the word. 

The silence stretches out between them for a minute, comfortable and familiar, before Bruce asks, "Is Jason still here?"

"I left Master Jason in the kitchen, sir, but he expressed a desire to visit the library before leaving. You might check there."

-

Jason is, in fact, still in the library, huddled in the corner between the fireplace and a bookshelf, talking quietly into a cell phone. In his other hand is a small stack of books – slim volumes, mostly leather-bound. It is too dark for Bruce to make out any of the titles.

Jason does not come back to the manor often, but he does come. The visits are usually _conveniently_ timed to when Bruce is away, but he can tell, later on, that Jason has been back. There are signs. Things moved just slightly, in the Cave, different scents in the kitchen. Books missing, usually from the library or the study. He's not sure whether Alfred gives them away or Jason just takes them.

He's glad, honestly. Most of the books missing probably haven't been read since his parents were alive.

"Yeah, buddy, I know. Soon, okay?" Jason's voice is gentle, almost affectionate, and Bruce wonders who it is he's talking to. He doesn't have enough context to make an educated guess. "I'm almost done here."

Bruce takes a step closer, and Jason looks up, catches his eyes. "Gotta go, okay?" he says, to the person on the other end of the line, and hangs up.

"Someone waiting on you?" Bruce doesn't mean for the question to sound harsh, but it sort of does. 

"Yes, actually." Jason's voice is clipped, tense, as he slips his phone back into a jacket pocket. "As much as I'm sure it astounds you."

Bruce's first instinct is to snap right back, but he tamps it down. Instead, he stuffs his hands into his pockets, resisting the urge to let this fall into the familiar pattern of a fight.

"Much as I enjoyed the show–" Jason leans back on his heels and rests his back against the wall, his head just underneath a painting of some old, dead relative whose name Bruce has forgotten. "–why'd you even ask me here for this, Bruce?"

"This was important. I wanted you to know." Bruce pauses, because Jason is still looking at him expectantly, as if that is not enough of an explanation. "I thought I made it clear that we're – that I–"

Jason rolls his eyes, and it briefly makes him look a lot younger. "Bruce, there is a wide, wide gap between 'we're good' and…whatever this is, and I don't–" He drifts off, then, voice dropping off and getting quieter. He looks distinctly uncomfortable, and again Bruce sees a flash of Jason as a teenager – a little bit awkward sometimes, out of uniform, and prone to papering over it with anger or sarcasm. "This is a family thing."

There is still a wobbly line Jason has drawn, there, between family and  _family_ , between the Cave and the manor, that Bruce wishes he didn't understand.

"You  _are_  family, Jason," Bruce says – quiet, but firm. He forces himself to look Jason right in the eye as he says it.

Jason, however, scowls and looks away, avoiding the eye contact. "No,  _that's_  your family." He gestures up, at the portrait hanging over the mantle. It's thrown into an odd shadow by the one lamp on in the room. "What a pretty fuckin' picture."

Damian on Bruce's right, Alfred on his left, Dick and Tim standing behind the chair he'd really hated sitting in.

That portrait is a little dated, now.

In the painting, Damian is still not quite eleven, small and angry and completely unaware that in a matter of months, he will be dead. Tim looks a little more gangly, still not quite grown into the bones of his teenage body. He has years, not months, but he also doesn't know that he will be dead before he even goes to college. Dick, though the least obviously changed of anyone in the picture, still manages to look different than he does now – younger, obviously, but lighter somehow, too. He will die not long after Damian does. He will only  _stay_  dead for seventeen seconds, but Bruce will still have to watch as his heart stops.

Alfred has a little less hair now, so that's different.

He doesn't say anything, for a while, and the longer the silence drags on the more he can feel the press of  _waiting_ , of Jason expecting him to say something.

Finally, Jason speaks, into the stillness that Bruce does not know what to do with. "Bruce, it's – it's fine." Jason sounds... _tired_. He does not sound fine. "You buried me. I don't even _exist_ anymore, not really. I can't be in the damn family photos."

"I have buried all of you."

It leaps out before Bruce can think it through.

Jason's face goes blank and hard. "Dick does  _not_  count," he snaps, icy and quiet. 

Bruce remembers seeing Jason at Dick's funeral – sitting in a back pew next to Roy Harper, hiding his face under a hood. Tim had gone to sit with them, for a few minutes, after the service was over. 

Dick was a lie, but Damian wasn't. Tim wasn't.  _Jason_ absolutely wasn't.

He is not sure if that's what makes the fight seep out of Jason abruptly, like air escaping a balloon, but it does. He sags back against the wall and mutters, "If you're gonna try to guilt-trip me, at least do it fucking accurately."  

Bruce cannot think of anything else to say. There are some things he does not expect forgiveness for.

Thunder crashes, outside – a low rumble, far away. The rain has picked up in earnest.

"A death certificate does not stop you from being part of this family," Bruce finally says. "And–"

He hesitates, before going on, because this is not a topic they have ever,  _ever_  broached before. It has always felt too much like picking at stitches – painful, pointless, and unhelpful. "–even that could be rectified, if it was something you wanted."

They'd had to do as much for Dick, even if the Spyral satellite had taken care of the heavy lifting. He had still been very much legally dead – headstone in the family cemetery, written out of Bruce's will, the whole nine yards. Vicki Vale had done an article about the latest Wayne family tragedy in the  _Gazette._ Members of the _Justice League_ had attended Dick's funeral. There was an  _extensive_  paper trail to erase and rewrite.

Jason, of course, would be even  _more_  complicated, but– 

Barbara's informed him she has a template made up for these sorts of things, now.

Jason stares, blankly, at the side of the mantlepiece, idly scratching at it with his finger. "I kinda like not paying taxes, thanks," he finally mutters. "Why would you even care?"

_Because you're my son._

The words stick, somewhere between the top of his throat and the middle of his tongue.

He says it to Damian often – plays the  _because I'm your father_ card, even if sometimes he phrases it as  _because I'm Batman_  instead. Honestly, there's precious little difference between the two. Damian does not have a choice in the matter, and neither does Bruce. Father and son is just what they are to each other.

But with the others, he hardly ever says it.

He has overstepped and mis-stepped and, if he's being completely honest, not stepped at all far too often when it comes to the boys. He does not feel any more suited to be anyone's father  _now_  than he had all those years ago, staring at a miserable, newly orphaned Dick across the breakfast table and wondering –  _realizing –_ what the hell he'd just done.

So he doesn't say  _because you're my son_ , even though he knows, deep down in the marrow of his bones, that it's the truth.

Legally, the distinction is irrelevant. He still has Jason's adoption papers, filed away in the same folder that contains his death certificate. The one does not invalidate the other.

But it's not– 

Bruce doesn't want to make that choice for him. Hasn't ever wanted to make that choice for any of the boys that have one. He cannot stop being their father, but they do not have to be sons, if that's not what they want from him – not what they  _need_ from him. He has asked so much from them, already.

It feels selfish to ask for this, too.

"I just want you to know," Bruce says, instead, "that this never stopped being your home."  He pauses, for a moment, not sure if he should go on. "It will never _stop_ being your home."

"I don't really do 'home' at the moment," Jason says, flatly. "Little busy." 

"Right."

"Right," Jason echoes him, awkwardly, and scratches at the back of his head with his free hand. "So, uh, speaking of busy, I'd better, um – before the storm gets worse – I'd better go."

"You could stay, you know," Bruce blurts out, before he can think better of it. "If the storm's that bad."

It is a terrible excuse, thin and transparent. He and Jason have both patrolled in far harsher conditions than a typical Gotham thunderstorm. As olive branches go, Bruce could almost certainly have picked a better one.

Jason's mouth quirks up on one side, though – not a smile, not quite, but it still makes something warm bloom in Bruce's chest. "Pretty sure I'll be fine," he drawls, "but thanks."

Jason gathers his stack of books to his side, then, and starts for the door. He stops before he gets there. "Bruce?"

"Hm?"

Jason turns around and smiles. It's a real one, this time. "You know you don't deserve her, right?"

Bruce can't help it. He smiles too. "Not even a little bit."

Jason laughs and turns back, heading out of the library. He waves with his free hand, without looking back at Bruce, as he walks out the door. "Good luck, old man."

-

Bruce considers the Cave again, for the third time in less than an hour, but decides  _not yet_.

Instead, he goes upstairs – following a hunch.

The upper hallways are dark, no lights on anywhere, not that he needs light to make his way through them. The door to his bedroom is open, though.    

Selina is sitting in what little light there is in the room – moonlight, mostly, and the distant glow of the Gotham skyline off in the distance , drifting over the river. The storm dims all of it, so she's still mostly in darkness, even with the curtains thrown wide open. Sprawled on the window seat, with her back up against the corner where the window frame meets the wall, she has one knee pulled up to her chest and the other dangling off the edge. Alfred – the cat, not the man, is curled up in the space between her and the window, huddled in against her body heat. The bell on his collar jingles, softly, as Selina runs her hand through his fur. 

"I didn't realize," she says, "that your menagerie included a cat."

Bruce opens his mouth, reflexively, to protest the description of  _menagerie_  before realizing that he can't really argue against the truth. There has been a  _cow_  living downstairs for years, now. "He's Damian's." It sets him back a bit, however, to realize that Selina has not been in the manor since before the cat arrived. "His name's Alfred."

Selina raises an eyebrow. Her lips are a thin, brittle line across her face. "He's a sweet boy. Takes after his namesake and not his human, hm?"

"Selina–"

"I know, Bruce." She curls a hand around the cat's head, idly scratching at its ears. "I can't really blame the kid."

"He'll come around. I'm going to talk to him."

"You haven't already?" Selina looks away from the window, her voice surprised in the half-second before she catches a glimpse of his face. Then she laughs. "He ran off, didn't he?"

Bruce makes an uncharitable noise that Dick would call a  _grumble_  and moves to sit down on the sill as well.

It is still raining outside, harder now than it had been even a minute ago. It will be quieter tonight, out on the streets. Even criminals prefer not being soaked to the skin while they work.  

For a few moments, there are only small sounds; the soft rush of rain, the wind in the tree outside the bedroom window, Alfred's very quiet purr as Selina runs her fingers across his back.

Then Selina asks, in an equally small voice, "Is this a good idea?"

"Is what a good idea?"

"This. Us." Selina's voice is sharp, but not with anger. "This is going to make things  _complicated_ , Bruce."

They  _have_  talked about that, a little. There are many variables.

Selina is not going to hang up the claws and goggles – it would arouse some suspicion, even if she wanted to do it, which she doesn't. Selina is still technically a wanted fugitive. Selina's secret identity has never been particularly  _secret,_ and if they get married in any sort of legal way,  _who_ Catwoman is married to will not stay a secret for long. 

That the Cat and the Bat have a.. _.vested interest_  in one another is already far more widely known than Bruce would like, and that is  _without_  any added complications.

Some of these things he can address, and some he cannot. Bruce has plans sketched out for a dozen different possibilities. They have yet to seriously discuss any of them.

"I don't recall  _complicated_  ever stopping either of us from doing anything." He matches his voice to hers – small, quiet, soft enough that only she would be able to hear it, even if they weren't alone in the room. 

That is a lie, of course. Certainly,  _complicated_  has never stopped him from solving a case, or her from pulling off an elaborate heist. It is, however,  _definitely_  the reason they are only having this conversation now, well over a decade after he'd first gone out and bought that diamond she stole. 

The ring is back on Selina's finger, now. She'd taken it off, last night, and hadn't put it back on while the boys were here. The diamond winks in the moonlight, bright against the black of Alfred's fur.

 _I knew I'd need it_ , he'd told her.  _Like I need you._

Selina smiles, but doesn't speak - just keeps running her fingers over Alfred's head until the cat finally stirs, tossing her hand off with a sudden twitch.

"Selina, I–"

Her name scrapes against the sides of his throat, comes out sounding hoarse as the rest of the thought dies on his tongue.

Bruce has spent so long ignoring the _needing_  that it is difficult, now, to sort out what he hasn't said before and why. There are things he hasn't said because they were unnecessary, and then there are things he hasn't said because he thought he shouldn't.   

"I think we've spent a long time pretending that this wasn't already complicated," is what he settles on, in the end. "I want it to be…simpler." 

Selina just snorts, leaning her head back into the corner where the window meets the wall. "This is never going to be simple, Bruce.  _We_  are never going to be simple."

"No. But you'd be bored, if it were too simple."

Selina grins, white teeth flashing even in the dim light. "True. I do bore easily." 

"It's a good thing I'm not boring, then." 

"Mmm. I could accuse you of being lots of unflattering things, but boring is not one of them." Alfred, apparently grown tired of Selina's attentions,  _meows_  quietly and jumps down off the window seat, slinking off into the darkness of the room. Selina takes the opportunity to slide across the seat, deftly insinuating herself onto Bruce's lap.

Bruce settles his hands on her hips. "Name one unflattering quality of mine." 

"You're stubborn." A kiss, just under his left ear. "Proud." Another, high on his throat, just under his chin. "Self-righteous." Lower on his throat, edging toward his collarbone. "And too attractive for your own good."

"Mm. Flatterer."

"No, I'm being  _un_ flattering, remember? That was the request." She flashes him a grin. "I can go on, if you want. The list of your terrible qualities is pretty long."

"I think I get the picture, thanks."

Bruce leans into her, presses a kiss to her lips and buries a hand in her hair. Selina smells like cigarettes and rain, like every meeting they've ever had on a Gotham rooftop; the only thing missing is the warm scent of leather, here replaced by the clean-linen smell of freshly laundered clothes. 

"If you'd told me six months – hell, six  _weeks_  ago that we'd  _ever_  be having a conversation even vaguely resembling this one, I'd have called you a lunatic," Selina mutters, after he lets her go. 

"You've called me that lots of times."

"And I  _meant_  it, every damn time." Selina winds her arms around his neck, rests her forearms on his shoulders. "It's getting late for you to still be in. Planning on taking the night off to entertain little old me?" 

"Do you have somewhere else to be?"

"Well, I _was_ planning be on the roof of the Feldman building in an hour or so."

"What's in the Feldman building?"

"An empty penthouse with a  _deliciously_ shoddy security system–"

Bruce raises an eyebrow. Selina pokes him in the ribs. 

"–belonging to a very nasty drug trafficker who needs to be relieved of his dirty money."

He inches his eyebrow a little higher.

"That I am planning to redistribute in a charitable fashion." She stretches out her arms, drawing in closer to him. "You know, if he's half as lazy with his books as he is with his valuables, there's probably enough in the apartment to snuff out the whole operation."

Bruce makes a noncommittal noise, considering. Selina wrinkles her nose and presses in a little closer, her short hair brushing against his cheek as she bends to whisper in his ear.

" _I'll r_ _ace you there."_

Bruce presses a kiss to her neck and smiles into it. 

-

He has no idea _who_ talks, or who they talk to, but by the next morning at least _one_ person Bruce hasn't told has already found out.

Kate's text message is short and sweet.     

> **mazel tov. do your best not to fuck it up.**

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> big, big thanks again to [helplesslynerdy](http://archiveofourown.org/users/helplesslynerdy) for reading this through. 
> 
> apologies for the delay between chapters; my life is very full, and I genuinely don't have much time for writing, as much as I enjoy it. I do, however, want to try and have this finished before Batman #32 comes out in October. 
> 
> Thanks so much to everyone who left kudos & comments on the last chapter. 
> 
> Next up is Damian.


	3. part iii - damian

Jon's parents let them stay up late.

The two of them set up camp on the couch in the Kents' living room. Jon makes microwave popcorn, and they eat soft, store-bought cookies with a thick layer of pink icing out of a plastic tin. It's the sort of food that Alfred would never allow to darken the doorstep of the manor, and it leaves Damian's fingers sticky with sugar and butter.

He and Jon play video games and watch cartoons, which get increasingly strange the later into the evening it gets. They argue off and on, by force of habit, about inconsequential things that Damian honestly doesn't have any strong opinions about.

They do not, at any point, discuss why Damian is here.

It is rather pleasantly distracting.

"You really aren't just… _lying in wait_ , or whatever, until Mom and Dad go to sleep so that you can drag me out to, like, stop jaywalkers for great justice?" Jon eventually asks him, with his mouth half-full of popcorn, when they're halfway through a third episode of some utterly bizarre show about talking rocks. He actually sounds sort of  _hopeful_.

Damian's Robin uniform – a necessity, since he'd stolen a Bat vehicle to come here – is crumpled up in a heap on the floor of Jon's room. Now, he's wearing borrowed clothes, a hideous purple shirt with the Pizza Fish logo splashed across the front and Metropolis Monarch pajama pants, which clash terribly with the shirt. Everything is just a little too big; he even had to cuff up the ankles of the pants.

The ensemble is absolutely an affront to his dignity, but Damian hates sleeping in his uniform – and even if he didn't, he honestly doesn't feel much like wearing it at the moment. 

"The only reason I came _h_ _ere_ ," Damian sneers, "is because it was unlikely that I'd be followed."

His first impulse had been to go out into Gotham, but there he definitely would have been followed. Strictly speaking, he is not supposed to patrol alone, due to the danger inherent in being without a partner. Damian, of course, routinely ignores this rule, but tonight it would have given his father the perfect excuse to come out and  _collect_  him – to force a conversation.

However, Damian could  _hardly_ be in any danger in Superman's living room. He's fairly certain he'll be left alone, for now.

"Wow, Damian," Jon drawls, voice thick with sarcasm. "I'm so glad we're friends, too."

"We are not friends," Damian replies, loftily. "The age difference is simply too stark. To me, you are but a child."

Jon throws a pillow at him. Damian throws one back. This devolves into a half-pillow fight, half-wrestling match that only ends because Jon's father – who has told Damian he'd prefer it if he just called him  _Clark_ , when he's not wearing the cape – sticks his head into the living room and asks them to please keep it down while other people are trying to sleep.

Damian falls asleep on the couch somewhere in the hazy hour between one and two A.M., but drifts awake again by five. Jon, sleeping at the other end of the sofa with his head under a pillow, is snoring like a freight train.

He tries to go back to sleep, pulling the red fleece blanket Jon's mother had left for them to share over his head, but he can't quite manage it. Bored and tired, with exhaustion making his eyes tingle and burn, Damian pulls out his phone underneath the blanket and attempts to draw in the paint application.

In between half-hearted attempts at compositions, he almost texts or calls Maya half a dozen times, but can't figure out anything to say that doesn't sound pathetic. Instead, in a fit of masochism, he stares at the screen of his phone and wonders what Talia would say about all this if he called  _her_. 

Something cutting about his father, followed by something about how Damian would be better appreciated back with the League, probably.

Damian doesn't even have his mother's phone number.

By five-thirty, he feels overheated under the fleece and frustrated with the artistic limitations imposed by a lack of pencil and paper. He throws off the blanket, looks for the pair of socks he'd shucked off earlier, and goes to look for the roof access.

-

The  _sameness_  of the city, seen from the rooftop, is a little bit comforting.

Metropolis is nicer than Gotham, but it is still a city. It still has dumpsters and traffic and back alleys, all visible from the roof of the Kents' building. If it weren't for the cosmetic differences in architecture, this could be any street in one of the nicer parts of Gotham, quietly humming with the sounds of life just before dawn – garbage trucks, starting cars, dogs out on morning walks. 

The buildings are taller, the streets cleaner than they are back in Gotham, but some things are the same everywhere. There are still ordinary people here, good and bad and everything in between. Crimes still occur. People still go hungry. Parents still abandon their children. Even Superman can't solve _everything_.

There are footfalls on the roof behind him. Too heavy to be Jon's. Too light to be Clark's. Stepping gently, trying not to be noticed. Of course, Damian could tell he wasn't alone as soon as he heard the roof access door open.

"I can hear you, you know," Damian says, louder than he needs to.

Jon's mother stops just below him, without acknowledgment.

It occurs to Damian that he doesn't actually know what to _call_  her. "Lane" seems wrong somehow, even though it's her name. "Jon's mother", which is honestly how he always thinks of her to himself, seems equally asinine and does not, in any event, fit well into English conversation. Perhaps just Lois.

"I see I'm not the only one who gets up early around here," Lois says conversationally, as if they're speaking across the island in the Kents' cozy kitchen and not while Damian is ten feet above her, perched on a crossbar of the water tower on the apartment building's roof.

"Why are  _you_  up?"

"Working on a story. Deadline's Monday and it's not finished yet." She looks up at him. "What about you? Couldn't sleep?"

Damian scowls. "Your son snores."

Lois laughs. "Yes, he does."

They are quiet for a minute before Lois says, "So, I hear your dad's getting married."

The city suddenly no longer seems comforting. All at once, Damian is back in the dining room at the manor, blood rushing in his ears as he shouts at his father, not even sure what he's saying. "Yes," he says, flatly. "He has stated his intention to do so."

Lois _hmms_. "You sound just _thrilled_  about that," she says dryly.

Damian glares down at her. "It is none of your business," he says, "if I am _thrilled_  about it or not."

"I'm really not very good at minding my own business," Lois says, unapologetically. "Sorry."

She doesn't sound sorry at all.

"Besides," Lois goes on, "it's not like I can't make some assumptions about your feelings from context. You literally _fled_  the scene of the crime, as it were."

Damian stares out at the Metropolis skyline. "How I _feel_ ," he says acidly, "about it is clearly irrelevant."

The look on Lois' face is not pity, though that is what he'd expected. Instead, she looks at him like he is a puzzle she would like to put together. "I doubt that," she finally says, carefully.

"I don't," he grumbles. Lois doesn't have anything to say to that.

"It's _okay_  to not be thrilled, you know," she finally says. "You're allowed to feel–" She searches for the right word. "– _conflicted_  about this kind of thing."

"I don't need _permission_  from you to do anything."

The problem, actually, is that he does not know _how_  to feel, other than inched even further out of the lives of everyone he knows.

He has long since stopped being a part of his mother's life – not a _bad_  thing, all considered, but still a true one. Richard has moved on to a new city, a new life. His father has dragged yet another stray into the family in the form of Thomas, and now _this_  – a companion, a _wife_ , yet another person that his father _chose_  rather than had foisted upon him–

 _To him, I'm an afterthought_ , he'd told his mother, on his birthday. _Afterthought, afterthought, afterthought._  He keeps willing his father to prove him wrong, but force of will does not seem to be working.

"No, you don't," Lois says, matter-of-fact.

Damian expects her to say something else – to offer platitudes, perhaps, or say something trite about how everything will be all right, but she does not.

Lois leans up against one of the water tower's supports and they wait, in fairly companionable silence, while Metropolis wakes up below them. Early-morning purple starts to bleed out of the sky, turning into blue instead.

"So," Lois finally says, just as the sun's peeking out from under the blue line of the bay. "Do you like waffles?"

-

Damian is press-ganged into helping make waffles.

The waffles are from a box mix, not from scratch, but they manage to taste better than Alfred's somehow. Lois adds blueberries to some (for herself) and chocolate chips to a few others (for Jon). Clark, apparently, likes his with strawberries on top. Damian begrudgingly appreciates Superman's good taste, and accepts the same.

The Kents' doorbell rings just as Jon, sleep-mussed and groggy, wanders into the kitchen. His father is close behind him, and stops to give Lois a kiss before going to answer the door.

The gesture, casual and affectionate, makes Damian's stomach twist unpleasantly. It has nothing to do with the physical affection and everything to do with the way _his_  parents look at each other, on the occasions that they meet. His father's eyes are hard and his mouth is a thin, pursed line, while his mother's face sets into the cool mask of indifference reserved for all those she deems _less than_.

He has certainly never seen his parents _embrace_.

Damian can hear the sound of the door opening, then closing, and then muffled voices in the front hallway. One of them is immediately recognizable, even slightly muted, so Damian is not surprised when his father walks into the room.

" _Well_ , look what the cat dragged in," Lois says immediately, and with obvious relish.

Bruce shoots her a deeply forbidding glare, stopping just short of actually scowling. Just behind him, Clark attempts – very badly – to turn a strangled laugh into a cough.

"Good morning, Lois," Bruce grits out, flat and unamused, and then looks right at Damian. "Damian," he says evenly, in a voice that clearly promises  _we'll be discussing all this later._  

"Congratulations again, Bruce," Clark says heartily, and claps Damian's father on the shoulder. Bruce looks down at the hand on his shoulder as though it's some sort of cancerous growth. Clark either doesn't notice or doesn't care, and squeezes Bruce's shoulder again before going to collect his plate of waffles.

"So, when's the wedding?" Lois asks, leaning back up against the kitchen counter. She is smirking against the rim of her cup of coffee, laughing eyes challenging his father's as she takes a sip.

"We…haven't discussed that yet," Bruce says, stilted.

"Well, if you're taking suggestions–"

"I'm not."

Lois ignores him. "–if you guys could wait, say, a year and a half to actually  _have_  the wedding, I'll technically win the pool."

Clark looks up, apparently startled, from his plate. Through a mouthful of waffle, he asks, "Pool? What pool?"

"The 'will Bruce ever get his head out of his–" Clark clears his throat, obnoxiously, and tips his head in Jon's direction. Jon, eyes wide and mouth full of chocolate chip waffle, looks expectantly at his mother. Lois makes a face, but censors herself. "– _butt_ ' pool."

"Why didn't I know about this?" Clark asks, more to himself than to Lois.

"Who won?" Bruce asks, sounding honestly torn between thunderous anger and curiosity. 

Lois grins widely. "Diana."

Clark appears to choke on a strawberry.

-

The mechanized glider that Damian stole from the Batcave has already been recalled back, on autopilot. His father's driven here, apparently, because one of the Bentleys is parked on the curb outside the Kents' building, looking ostentatiously out of place in this modest outer Metropolis borough.

"Good luck with the whole step-mom thing," Jon whispers to him, as their fathers are saying goodbye to each other. He sounds deliberately cheerful, but his expression is an attempt at commiserating. It doesn't really work. Jon's face is made for smiling, for laughing; when he attempts to be deliberately serious it just makes him look like he's play-acting.

"I am not sure that _luck_  will be sufficient," Damian says, morose.

Jon shrugs. "Can't hurt, right?"

Once they are in the car together, Damian immediately sinks down into his seat, slouching and looking everywhere, _anywhere_  but at his father.

"Damian–" Bruce starts, then cuts himself off, as if he's not quite sure what to say. Damian waits, hoping for – he's not sure what for, actually, but for _something_. Something other than tense silence.

"I'm sorry," his father says, eventually, which is…surprising. "if you felt blindsided yesterday. That wasn't my intention."

Damian does not respond, but continues to hope.

"You _will_  need to apologize to Selina, though," his father says.

"I said nothing untrue."

His father's expression sets into something _hard_  and unpleasant. " _Harlot_  was definitely untrue, not to mention beyond inappropriate."

Damian sinks down further into the upholstery. The silence seems to get thicker, the air in between him and his father so _full_  that he's surprised it's not opaque.

Bruce's eyes are ostensibly on the road, but his attention is not. "Damian, if this is about your mother–"

Something hot and angry prickles up the back of his neck. "It's not."

"Your mother and I aren't–" His father sounds deeply uncomfortable. "It would be a stretch to say that we were ever _together_  to begin with. You have to know that – that's not going to change. Ever."

Talia still calls his father _Beloved_ , even though she has tried to kill him at least half a dozen times. Damian is not sure why. Sometimes he's not sure his mother knows _how_  to love anyone except Ra's.

"I know that," Damian snaps. "I am not _simple_."

His father looks a little… _lost_. "You know that doesn't change how I feel about you," he says. "Just because Talia and I–"

"My mother was complicit in my nightmare of a childhood," Damian cuts him off. "I could care less if she lives or dies, let alone whether or not you the two of you are in a _relationship_."

This is not quite true. Everything Damian feels about his mother is a tangled, bloody knot in the middle of his chest – the horror of the hundreds of people she'd asked him, ordered him, _taught_  him to kill is mixed up with the way she used to call him _my darling_ , her voice warm and soft.

The pat dismissal does make his father stop talking, though.

The rest of the drive back to Gotham is aggressively silent, except for the low hum of the car's engine. Damian closes his eyes and puts his headphones in, though he doesn't actually listen to anything. Instead, he closes his eyes and tries to recall the exact cadence of his mother's voice saying his name.

-

They come in through the kitchen door when they get back to the manor. It isn't empty – Thomas is there, standing at the kitchen island and apparently making himself a sandwich.

"Where have you been?" Duke asks, as soon as he notices them come in.

"Metropolis," Bruce says, at the same time that Damian says "Out."

Duke just raises an eyebrow and spreads more mustard on a slice of bread. "Uh…okay."

Thomas does, occasionally, fall into a particular way of speaking which makes everything that comes out of his mouth seem like a question. Damian takes it upon himself to answer this one.

"Father's getting married," he says, a little louder than he probably needs to.

Bruce looks at the ceiling, as if pleading for help from a deity. Duke looks up from his sandwich, his other eyebrow climbing up towards his hairline.

"To _Catwoman_."

Duke's eyes go wider than saucers as he stares at Bruce. "You're doing _what_  now?"

Damian privately relishes his father's obvious discomfort. "Selina and I have… _known_  each other a very long time," he says, then clears his throat before going on. "We're…making it official." He clears his throat uncomfortably, then says, apologetically, "I was going to tell you this morning, but you were still asleep when I left for Metropolis."

Duke, looking _deeply_  skeptical, just mumbles, "Uh-huh."

Bruce heaves a deep sigh and looks down at Damian. "You _will_  make your apology. Today, if possible." He pauses, for a moment. "Patrol, tonight?"

Damian wonders what his father would do if he said _no_ ; if he went upstairs and packed his things and just _left_  to go back to San Francisco. "Yes," he says, anyways.

Bruce nods. "I'll be downstairs."

Duke watches him go with still-wide eyes. "Dude," he breathes, once Bruce is out of earshot. "Is he _serious_?"

Damian grits his teeth. "Unfortunately."

Thomas gives him a look that verges on _pity_. Damian wants to scream.

Normally, Duke is objectively difficult to dislike. He is quiet, intelligent and tolerably competent in the field, given his relatively small amount of practical experience. Perhaps most importantly, he mostly keeps to himself, which means that Damian's life can continue uninterrupted.

But the look on Duke's face right now makes Damian want to punch him in the nose.

He settles for flicking the jar of mustard over with one finger, then stalking out of the kitchen.

-

He wants to speak with Richard.

Richard is already gone.

There is a note on the desk in Damian's room, written in Grayson's familiar large, angular printing.

_Had to head to Manhattan on short notice. Call if you need me. Don't be too hard on Bruce._

Damian crumples up the note – with much more force than necessary – and hurls it across his room, where it lands neatly in the wastebasket.

-

He suits up and leaves the Cave early, before his father can join him. He'll be scolded – possibly benched – for it later, but Damian can't find it in himself to care. He's only following _orders_ , after all.

He knows where Catwoman lives. All of her known addresses are in her file on the Batcomputer, including the most recent one, which is rented under one assumed name and paid for by another. Damian knows exactly which window on the fifth floor of a fair-to-middling building in the East End is Selina Kyle's, and he knows that she is home because there are lights on inside.

When he shimmies down the fire escape and knocks on the window – three sharp _taps_  that sound loud in the relative quiet of the city night – it is only a few moments before it opens and Selina's head appears behind the foggy glass. She unlatches the window and pushes it up.

"You're more polite than the big guy," she says. "I don't think he even knows _how_  to knock. Come inside, it's freezing out there."

Damian has never, in his whole life, ever been called _polite_. "I'll stay here."

Selina gives him a quizzical look, but doesn't protest. A very handsome black cat is curling itself around her arm where it rests on the windowsill. "I am informed that I owe you an apology," he says stiffly.

"For what?" She sounds genuinely curious. Clearly this pointless exercise was wholly his father's idea.

"Apparently I implied unsavory things about your person after Father's announcement of your engagement." He grimaces. "Untruths, I'm told. An apology was required."

"By your dad."

Damian says nothing. Selina sighs. "It's water under the bridge, kid. I've heard worse. I know it was a big thing we sprung on you."

For some reason, her response irks him. The hot, angry _thing_  that has been crawling just underneath Damian's skin all day itches for a fight wants her to be _angry_ , to take offense. "I'll have you know that I still disapprove of my father's choice of bride," he sneers. "This does not negate that."

Selina crosses her arms on the windowsill and looks at him – assessing, but in a way that's very different than the way his father does. _She_  doesn't make any attempt to hide the way she's sizing him up. "I'm not your biggest fan either, kid," she finally says, frankly. Damian has to admit that he appreciates the honesty. "But it looks like we're stuck with each other."

"We are both stuck with my _father_ ," Damian says. " _We_  need not be anything to one another."

Selina rubs at her temple with one hand. "Look, I don't know what to say, here. I'm not going to–" She visibly appears to struggle for words. "–to _replace_  your mom, or anything, if that's what you're worried about. Though, if we're being honest here, you probably deserve better. Not that I'm better. Or going to be your mom. But–"

"My mother is not a good person," Damian agrees, tonelessly. Selina looks _sad_ , like that is _her_  problem and not his. "But you're not either."

"Kid–" Selina shakes her head, once, and then tries again. "Kid, I don't know what you want from me."

What Damian _wants_  is for things to go back to the way they were. He just cannot decide which 'were.' 

When he and Father were Batman and Robin, the way it was before Damian died, before Thomas and Cain and all the _strays_ ; when he and Grayson were Batman and Robin, when they were _partners_ ; when Batman was only a story, from a city far away, and things were just as black and white as his mother made them seem.

There is something hot pricking at the edges of his eyes, under the domino mask, and Damian feels a roiling pit of _shame_  open up, low in his stomach – shame at the warm pinpricks of not-quite-tears, shame at wanting _any_  of these stupid, juvenile things at all. He sits down on the steps of the fire escape without thinking about how it will look, and presses the heels of his palms against his eyes. It makes the lenses of his mask dig into his skin, a sharp pinch that doesn't help to keep the tears in check.

"Kid?" Selina asks, soft and hesitant, from the window. "You okay?"

"I'm fine." Damian mutters, but it comes out sounding watery. "I am uninjured."

"Jesus Christ," Selina mumbles. "This is _way_  above my pay grade." The cat jumps down off the windowsill, back down into the apartment, and Selina herself shifts to the side, one hand pointing inside. "Come in."

Damian balls his hands into fists and straightens his back. "No."

"It's like thirty-five degrees outside, you candy-colored masochist. Come inside."

"My suit is insulated. I have patrolling to do."

"Like hell you do. It's barely ten, and it's already started raining again." Damian hadn't even noticed. There are, in fact, raindrops slipping off the water-resistant fabric of his cape. " _Batman_  won't even be out for an hour or so."

Damian _very_  much wants to say _you can't tell me what to do,_  which, despite being objectively true, sounds intensely childish even in the privacy of his own mind.

"Come in. Sit down. Or don't. Go home. But you can't just sit out on my fire escape like a drowned rat. Bird. Whatever."

Damian does not say anything. He takes his hands off his face and balls up his fists, letting his fingernails dig into the reinforced leather of his gauntlets, for a moment. Then, begrudgingly, he comes over the threshold of the window and into Selina's apartment.

It's roomy, for a place in a building this old, and the decor makes it look more like the penthouse in Wayne Tower than a fifth-floor walkup. The black cat is sitting on a sleek gray couch, licking its paws.

"Isis might appreciate some company," Selina says, hesitantly. He sits down on an ottoman, instead. The cat – Isis, apparently – makes the leap from the couch onto the ground and rubs up against his leg in greeting. Contrary animal. He wonders if this is a piece of intelligence his father has passed on, so that Selina can ingratiate herself – _Damian likes animals, try that_. It would be just like him.

"Do you…want something hot to drink, or something?" Selina sounds like she hasn't the faintest idea what she ought to do next, even though she is the one who invited Damian inside.

"If you say anything about this to anyone," Damian says, in response, "I will visit such devastation upon you that–"

"Damian." Selina cuts him off, sharply. The cat stops rubbing against his leg and wanders off to inspect another piece of furniture. "I don't want us to be enemies."

He looks at her, but doesn't respond.

She studies him, for a minute, appearing to weigh some options before ultimately speaking again. "So is it really about your mom? About me?" she asks, quietly. "Or is it about Bruce?"

Damian looks at his hands and wishes that he knew.

Selina sighs and turns around, heading to a different part of the apartment. "I'll make you some tea, or something."

He waits for her to disappear, for the sounds of clinking mugs and running water and stove dials being turned to indicate that she is occupied.

By the time Selina comes back into the living room, Damian is already gone.

-

"Selina told me you came to see her."

His father's voice comes from somewhere behind him. It has been hours, now, since Selina's apartment; Batman and Robin's patrol was cut short by rain turned into sleet, and now all there's left to do is finish reports and put equipment away. Alfred has already come and gone.

Damian has been sitting on the edge of one of the Cave's upper platforms, as far away from the Batcomputer as he could possibly have an excuse to be, inventorying his utility belt. "So, she's a thief _and_  a traitor. Perfect. Truly, you've incomparable taste in partners, Father."

Bruce settles down next to him on the ledge, and Damian looks up at him. He's taken the cape and cowl off, though the kevlar suit remains on.

All of their conversations on patrol had been strictly professional, if slightly strained. This is the first time his father has broached the subject of Selina since they spoke in the car, on the way back from Metropolis.

"I did this wrong, didn't I?" Bruce finally says, to the air as much as to Damian.

"Did what wrong? You'll have to be more specific."

His father rubs a hand over his face. "You tell me, Damian. Something, obviously."

"Everything's _different_  now," is what Damian finally says, and it comes out sounding small and pathetic. He hates it, _hates_  it, wants to take it back as soon as he says it, but it's too late. Now that the words have started falling out of his mouth, he cannot stop them. "Thomas is here for good. Grayson's _never_  here." He does not mention Drake, because that is a dull, peculiar ache he does not understand, and does not want to examine. Damian tries to funnel some of the heat pricking at the corners of his eyes into the words as anger, but it doesn't work. The heat just wants to be tears. " _You're_  certainly never here."

"You're not exactly here a lot either, Damian," his father says, a bit sharply. "By choice, I might add."

The _heat_ , which has been burning and simmering all day – under his skin, at the corners of his eyes, in the base of his skull, getting hotter and hotter until it boils over, finally does. "I _didn't_  have a choice!"

The heat, then, infuriatingly, does actually become tears, stinging hot and pooling in the lenses of the mask Damian still hasn't taken off.

The words hang in the air, ringing, like an echo. His father looks like he's been slapped.

"What else was I supposed to do?" The words are bubbling up and out of his chest now, like boiling water out of a pot. "You had started… _replacing_  me. With that little team of yours. With your new _Robin_." His father flinches, ever so slightly, and Damian feels savagely glad for it. "Oh, I know you're not _calling_  him that, but that's what he is." He can feel the anger, hot and almost pleasant in its catharsis, thrumming in his skin. "At least you waited for Todd to _die_  before you replaced him!"

His father's face, previously frozen in something resembling shock, goes abruptly blank – shut off completely, his expression hard as marble. " _Damian_ –" he starts to grit out, but Damian again can't stop the words from coming, things he's been thinking to himself for months but never said out loud.

"Now you've gone and gotten yourself a _wife_ , to complete your little family, all these people you _picked_  for yourself–" The heat has now resolved itself into a burning sensation somewhere in the vicinity of Damian's lungs; he feels like he's just run a marathon, even though he hasn't moved. "You didn't _pick_  me. You never even wanted me to begin with."

For a moment, there's no sound but the bats, fluttering around the highest points of the Cave's main chamber.

"So the Titans–" Bruce says, haltingly, "–is that because you thought I didn't want you around?" 

"I didn't  _think,_ " Damian replies, acidly. "I observed, and reacted accordingly. We had barely spoken in weeks. In fact, I spoke more to _Thomas_  than to you, the week before I left for San Francisco."

There's silence for a few more moments, this time not even broken by the sound of bats.

"Did you know," his father eventually says, quietly and deliberately, in the voice he uses to speak to frightened crime victims, "that Dick and I used to fight?"

Damian looks at him quizzically. "You _s_ _till_  fight." Grayson and his father both have very strong opinions on the proper way to do things. Usually, Richard's approach is to just ignore whatever Damian's father says and do things his own way, no matter what, but there is sometimes confrontation involved. It is rarely quiet. "What does that have to do with anything?"

Bruce laughs, without humor. "I don't think you quite understand what I mean when I say that we _fought_. We haven't fought like that in a long time. Not since you've been with us, I don't think. We'd have fights so bad we wouldn't speak for weeks. _Months_."

Damian has known Richard to occasionally be at odds with his father, but never quite to that extent. "Why?"

Bruce appears to think for a moment. "He grew up," is what he settles on, finally. "And I didn't know how to handle it. So I sometimes–" He pauses, as if considering something else. "No, not just _sometimes_. I handled it badly. Pushed him away, sometimes intentionally, because that was the only thing I could think of to do."

Damian fiddles with a tear, previously unnoticed, at the hem of his uniform tunic. "Do you have a _point_ , Father?"

"The point," Bruce says, "is that I am – _often_ , or so I'm told – bad at this. At knowing what to say. And when I don't know what to say, I just…don't say anything."

"That's only logical." It is. Silence in lieu of ill-thought-out strategy is a sound tactical move. It just happens to feel unpleasant, being on the receiving end.

His father frowns. "But not effective, clearly."

Bruce bumps Damian's arm with his own, and Damian looks up at him. "No one is being _replaced_ , Damian," his father says, decisively. "Certainly not you. Not by Selina, or Duke, or anyone."

"But I _am_  going to marry Selina," Bruce goes on, firmly. "That's the decision we've made, between the two of us. I'm sorry if you felt ambushed by that announcement, though clearly that's not really what this is about." He purses his lips. "And I'm – I'm _sorry_  that I can't give you something…normal. I'm sorry that things between your mother and I are what they are."

Damian sniffs, and then mumbles, "I do not want _normal_. That's ridiculous." He tugs, once again, at the rip in his uniform, and it gives a little. Alfred is going to put on an extremely long-suffering act when he sees it. "But I don't want to be an _afterthought_ , either."

His father puts a hand on Damian's far shoulder and pulls him in closer, so their sides are pressed together. He can't remember the last time they were this close, outside of sparring or battle maneuvers.

It is…not unpleasant.

"Do _n_ _ot_ ," Damian mumbles, "take this as license to treat me like a _child_. I'll not consent to such degradation."

His father's lip quirks up at one side, just a bit. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks again to [helplesslynerdy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/helplesslynerdy/pseuds/helplesslynerdy) for reading this through, and many thanks to everyone who's left kudos and comments here; they really mean a lot. ♥


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